


Someone You Loved

by winterwxdow



Category: IT - Stephen King, It (2019
Genre: M/M, Something I whipped up on tumblr right after it part 2, Violence, and sadness, there will be slight blood
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-28
Updated: 2019-11-28
Packaged: 2021-02-26 04:28:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,386
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21597658
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/winterwxdow/pseuds/winterwxdow
Summary: Reddie oneshot. Some violence, cursing, and heartbreak with a sweet fluffy center.
Relationships: Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier
Comments: 4
Kudos: 17





	Someone You Loved

“I don’t know about this, Richie.”

Fear rose his voice – shrill and quick to the draw as soon as they rode up to the woods. Richie ditched his bike already off the side of the road and was walking toward an apparent destination. A confident fill-in leader when needed. It almost could have convinced Eddie, had Richie not stopped and started cursing at him the moment he realized he wasn’t following.

“What the fuck are you doing? Come on. You trust me, right?” Silence. “Stop being a pussy and get moving!” He called out, though he had no intentions on moving until Eddie started his way. His feet were planted, hands on his hips in an exaggerated stance with a dumb look on his face. That dumb look being a squint of his big bug eyes zoomed in tenfold from his glasses, his upper lip curled in something like faux disappointment and disgust. Eddie knew that face too well. 

Eddie groaned and threw his bike down to rest next to his friend’s. “My mom is going to kill me.” He squealed out, hands sliding down his cheeks as he made his way over to an impatient Richie. Richie’s face lit up as Eddie shuffled by his side. Slapping Eddie’s shoulder in glee, he cheered and began to lead them again.

“I knew you weren’t all vagina.” He teased through a wide grin, earning a grumble and push from his fellow loser.

Eddie didn’t know where they were going, not exactly. See, Richie had an idea. It was a stupid idea, for sure, but he wasn’t going to let Richie travel into stupidity alone – not after the run in with a killer clown bent around their fears and dark secrets. Someone had to calculate the risks. Someone had to be a voice of reason, and Richie Tozier was not it. The plan? Exploring the town’s history to prepare for the inevitable return of their clown nemesis – or so he called it. Eddie severely doubted Richie’s credibility, after all, it was Richie, and he probably couldn’t even read let alone plan a strategic adventure that would lead to some grand truth about the horror they had faced – let alone remember that amazing truth for twenty-seven years. If anything, the adventure was more likely to lead them to their untimely deaths with Eddie’s face on a milk carton, and Richie’s mom thanking God her idiot son was dead.

Caught in his mind of doubts, fears, and ‘fuck richie’s, Eddie was abruptly pulled out with a screech.

“WHAT IS THAT?”

Richie’s voice was a pubescent train wreck. Shrieking highs and lows. Mostly highs.

An alert Eddie frantically looked around, head moving to keep up with his eyes, brows forced together with concentration and raised with terror. Once he caught sight of what had caused Richie to nearly make him jump out of his skin, he huffed out a frustrated sigh.

“It’s- It’s a doll.” His face dropped. “You fucking screamed-- about a doll.” His hands moved from his shaggy-headed friend to gesture toward a porcelain doll about thirty feet away from them, hanging and swaying in a low tree branch. It was caked in mud, eyes knocked out but still rattling within its head in the autumn breeze. Color would peek out of the dark voids – piercing blue. Fragments of the doll littered the ground, half-buried in land and leaves, partially blown away with the wind. In the dreary dark woods, it almost seemed natural for it to be there. Especially after the Hell they had endured.

Richie was covering his face when Eddie smacked him in the chest.

“Did you plan this shit?” He demanded, immediately annoyed and offended. “It’s creepy and stupid and- and dangerous. We’ve already been through so much shit and you’re just fucking around.” In between Eddie’s bouts of rage, Richie was trying like hell to get a word in. With desperate ‘no’ and pleads, he kept reaching out to Eddie. His hands shakily grasping for one of his friend’s, and Eddie’s angrily slapping them off just as fast. “You can’t take ANYTHING seriously! You fucki--”

“Hey, Fairies. What are you doing up here? Finding a place to fag up?”

Eddie’s blood ran cold. Any anger in his system dissipated. 

Henry. Fucking. Bowers.

The voice came from behind them. The Losers turned together, both of their hands dropped from their prior argumentative state of pleading and refusals. 

Standing by their bikes along the roadside was Henry and another boy. Younger. Not one of his usual goons. This one was new. A blonde boy, bad mullet, with a sleeveless shirt and bound to have daddy issues half the size of Henry’s – not nearly as ugly.

“You’re the one sneaking off with Goldilocks over there.” Richie shouted back, earning a smack to the gut from a scared shitless Eddie. Any other time he would have laughed, but their only hope to escape was roughly two steps away from Henry Bower’s scuffed up boots. Needless to say, the fast retort didn’t please the neighborhood bully. In fact, it pissed him off, got that hatred burning wild and alive in his blue slit eyes and his lips curled back into a sick sneer – a dangerous one that made Eddie’s blood pressure sky rocket and his breath catch in his throat. Like a wolf in one of his science classes’ videos’ staring at it’s soon-to-be-dead prey. He didn’t like which side he was on in that predicament.

“Let’s tie these losers up like the dollies they are and break their faces till their eyes fall out of their heads.” Henry suggested smoothly, granting a guttural laugh from his goonie and a soft cry from behind Eddie’s pressed lips only Richie could hear.

Richie took a firm hold of Eddie’s arm and launched him back behind him, forcing Eddie’s legs to propel back up the hillside – it was the smallest of pushes, but all the terrified boy needed to start taking off first. Trashmouth was quick to follow the best he could, his shoe slid off mud and fallen leaves, but he managed to catch himself and escape a grasping hand belonging to Bowers. 

Eddie’s lungs were on fire by the time he ran uphill and reached the top. Past the creepy doll and damn-near face-first into a few trees out of blind fear. He would have kept running too, but his heart was pounding in his chest and his lungs were contracting in ways he recognized and didn’t like. Ways that reminded him his body wasn’t built from running from bullies or running up hills or doing anything with Richie fucking Tozier ever again. Not far off from him was a cursing Richie – a fuck per every step he ran – and right behind him was Henry Bowers who was coming close to tackling him and a blonde mystery boy that didn’t get a second glance from Eddie because he was pretty sure Henry was enough alone to end him. Despite the aching in his lungs and the fire and smoke in his chest, he pressed on – finally making his way downhill and catching on leaves and cold mud; a cycle of slipping and feet catching on sticks and mud piles until he lost his balance. He tried to catch himself but ended up tumbling hands-arms-face-chest-everybitofEddie down the hill toward a small stream. He heard his name being called – no, screamed – then felt a sharp ache in his head, a sick thump, wetness taking hold of him, then someone turned off his world.

But not Richie. Richie wasn’t so lucky. He made it successfully down the hill with plenty of time and distance to witness Eddie smash the back of his skull into a rock and go unconscious – if life allowed playbacks, he could go back to the exact moment Eddie slipped out of his skin. “EDS!” The nickname rubbed against his dry throat raw, then there was a hand at the back of his shaggy head and he was being forced to the ground. Face pressed into earth, mouth overwhelmed with dirt and mud and everything Eddie would be bitching about, Richie felt weight on his back. Light at first then slammed into him. A hefty boot with weight behind it forced into his crunching bones. Once. Twice. Then a swift kick to his ribcage from the side, and he was rolled over on his back with his eyes to the sky. His glasses had fallen off, smashed into dirt and grime, but he knew the entity towering over him. The menace to the world, specifically his in that moment, grinning down at him with a psychotic gleam.

“What was that about Goldilocks?” Henry asked, anger a sharp edge to his voice despite him trying to sound as innocent as he could manage. As if he hadn’t imprinted his boot print on Richie’s back, fractured a rib or two, and fucked his glasses. When there was no attempt at a response from a suffering Richie, Henry kicked him again. Harder, foot to the side for more range. Richie groaned in response and tried to lift his head up. “Where-- Where’s Eddie?” He asked, throat still dry, voice weak from his lungs being pressed in and bones shifted. “I swear, if you hurt Eddie- I’ll.. I’ll fucking kill yo-”

Insert boot into esophagus. Henry was clenching his teeth in dismay, weighing more and more pressure into his foot. Every second earning a sick choking noise from Tozier – gasps for air, gasps from pain. Just when his vision was wavering in and out of darkness, he heard Henry’s goon speak up. A concerned voice of reason, thank God.

“H-Hey, Henry. I don’t think… You’re really hurting him.”

“Shut. The. Fuck. UP.” Henry chided back, though he did slam his foot fully down next to the ground by Richie’s face. He swung his hands back into the air and grabbed a hold of the boy with him, gritting his teeth and staring down the other boy. The younger of the two was staring back at him, eyes wide and full of uncertainty. 

“If we don’t leave right now, I’m telling my dad.”

Bowers laughed at the ultimatum and watched the other boy. Turning his complete attention to him now. Richie and Eddie melted away into the background as he closed in on the blonde, fingers curling around his throat and squeezing until he was gasping too. “I told you I don’t care what he thinks. I don’t care what you think. I want to hurt--”

It took everything he had in him- but mostly adrenaline and the will to live- and Richie was up and down to the stream to retrieve Eddie. The lenses of his glasses were cracked on one eye and had fallen out the other, but the sight of red water, red rock, and red Eddie was enough to get him going. “Come on, come on, come on.” He urged his unconscious companion in vain, trying to find a way to contort Eddie’s body around his so he could move. Once he was able to keep himself and Eddie upright, he was ankle-deep across the stream and heading to the closest safe place he could find.

Henry watched as a limping, shrinking Richie made his getaway with a passed out Eddie on his arm. His grip tight around his cousin’s throat, then not at all. “You’re not telling him anything. They’re fine, see?” He pointed at the losers, far off from them, then met his younger cousin’s eye. “Shut the fuck up. We’re going home.” He spat out, reaching out and smacking his cousin’s cheek without any sign of affection. “Go.”

Drip. Drip. Dripping. A short distance to travel along his cheek, red and clear trails alike left behind. When Richie wasn't panicking, he was wiping away the evidence of it on his friend's face. He found refuge for them in an unlikely place: somewhere they wouldn't have stepped foot in weeks ago now welcomed them with open arms, and this time, not because of a killer clown. Plopped down in God only knew, Richie had his unconscious friend encircled in his legs and arms to keep him still, head elavated and away from the filthy water they both sat and laid in. Eddie's head propped up in Richie's lap, barely bleeding wound residing in bony, painful chest bones and stomach. Richie knew their current hideout wasn't forever, that they'd have to gather their bikes and ride home bloodied, bruised, and broken. Eddie's mom would ban him from ever seeing Richie again and whisk him away to the hospital for treatment he definitely needed, and he would take every drop of blood and misplaced bone in stride after his own visit to a professional. 

Through spider cracked lenses, he watched as Eddie stirred to awareness. His face contorting to whatever peace unconsciousness granted him to agony. Lips pulled back with a hiss, big scared eyes opening to meet his. Drip. Eddie went to scream and wiped furiously at his face as he tried to sit up, too fast to make it at first, but once released from his friend's hold, he made it just fine and quickly bounced back on his feet. Any painful expression gave way to pure disgust. "Wha... it smells like shit." He went to wipe at his eyes and paused as though the water just clicked. His stomach lunged, he gagged and covered his mouth. "What the FUCK?" His voice heightened in a squeak. "Why are we here?! Why are you in it? Why am I in it?" Flailing around helplessly trying to grasp why they would end up at the sewer pipe, Eddie could feel anger, pain, and annoyance swelling inside his pitiful head. "What the fuck is wrong with you, Richie?"

"I don't know." 

A damper was thrown on the shorter boy's anger. Richie wasn't as fiery and quick to the punch. Under closer observation without emotion blinding him, Eddie released the stream of blood, fresh and dry, from Tozier's nose to his lip and chin. Tear stains purifying dirt smeared on his face. Broken and bent glasses. A dead stare off at Eddie and past him at the same time.

Huffing out softly, a skeptical Eddie reached out and found Richie's arm. His hand was lost in piss water, so he wasn't about to aim for that. "Come on. Get up. We need to go home. Now." He demanded, giving the limp arm a tug in the right direction. 

"You need to go to a doctor, Eddie. Your mom is going to kill me, and my fucking body hurts."

Eddie drank in the comment slowly. He was so focused on his immediate surroundings and the condition of his friend that he didn't even think what had to be wrong with himself, and why he didn't know how they got to where they were or how Richie got to being so fucked.

"Wha…"

Eddie's fingers began to inspect his body, focusing on sides, chest, stomach before an ache in his head gave it away. He slowly reached a hand back to the wound and softly swiped two fingers across the back of his head, wincing as pain bloomed in their wake. Glancing down at the smear of blood on his fingertips, he groaned quietly and rubbed the blood off on his shirt. 

"Henry and the hill. I hit my head. You got us all the way here alive? Richie, that's crazy. Crazy stupid. Look at you!" He gestured toward his run down friend, mouth gaping. But Richie looked uncomfortable. Squinted eyes and a concentrated brow. "Hello? Earth to Richie?" Eddie tried to chime into Richie's thoughts, even reached down to slap the side of his cheek. Richie didn't move.

"What if Henry was right?" He asked softly, brows pulling closer together. He looked scared, at war with himself.

"Henry Bowers. Right? Of course he's not right. He's Henry and he's a fucking idiot." Eddie dismissed his statement.

"Right about why I took you there, Eds."

Eddie threw his arms out to his sides. 

"What are you even talking ab--"

"Over the summer after we all got into a fight, I hung out with that kid with Henry every day. We played games together." Richie's words sounded like a confession, but Eddie couldn't grasp what it was he was confessing to. 

"You're not making sense, Richie!" He didn't know what his friend was saying, didn't know what he was trying to understand. 

"I wanted to tell you something for a while and I asked you to come with me because I need someone to know, okay?" Richie's voice was shaky and defensive. It hurt to breathe, it hurt to talk, it hurt to be honest. Especially when forged into a weapon designed to kill him over it. But that was a memory for another confessional moment.

Eddie didn't respond, he was waiting on the whole story before commenting. His eyebrows were raised expectantly, his arms were crossed over his chest, his fingers impatiently drumming away. 

"I think I'm... I think I like..."

Eddie forced Richie up on his feet by tugging on his arm. "That's it. We need to go home right now. You're talking in riddles and that could be a sign of a concussion. Or you could've lost too much blood. Or brain damage, which is probably already an issue for you enough or--" 

'"I carved our initials at the kissing bridge."

Eddie stopped talking, moving, breathing. Richie stared at him hard, trying to access the reaction. Good? Bad? Really bad?

"Oh," came a rushed breath out. Eddie forced to respond with the look on Richie's face. He was being serious. No bullshit. Probably for sure brain damage. "You did... what?" He released his friend's arm and took an uncertain step back. The wheels were turning in his head, pieces shifting and clicking together rapidly.

Richie took a step toward him, a newfound surge of confidence took over him once he realized his friend wasn't running away, screaming at him, or hitting him yet.

"I asked you to come with me so I could-" 

A weary step forward from Eddie, and he was on his tip toes with his hands at Richie's sore sides, his lips against bloodstained ones. Quick. There and gone. 

Tozier's head was sent reeling. His eyes were wide, expression hopeful, heart ready to explode. 

"Do you-"

"I don't know. But my head hurts and- and you're talking crazy. We need to go home." 

Eddie was quick to dismiss any further talking. He dropped his hands from Richie and gave him a pat on the back, ushering him away from the filthy piss water and their horrifying past, toward a darkening twilight sky and the woods they originally came to investigate. 

In silence the whole walk back to their bikes with a slightly bent over Richie holding his bruised side, and Eddie with his eyes cast to the ground, every now and then meeting his friend's gaze and giving him a small smile. Every now and then, their hands brushing and fingers curling together until they couldn't be torn apart. Through the woods, past the doll, where Richie jumped and smacked it toward Eddie with his freehand. Eddie's hand slipped out of his reflexively, first slapping the creepy broken doll strung up in the tree, then slapping the shaggy-headed broken boy's face - he was off racing to his bike laughing with Richie on his heels.

In the forest there was no pressure, no expectations, nothing but two friends enjoying each other's company and basking in an ordinary school crush. One of the boys which would keep the other's name on his lips and mind for years to come, and the other would let it go in favor of barricading himself in fears and what ifs - even going as far as making a career out of it. From R + E on Derry's kissing bridge to the seemingly carefree trashmouth comedian and the risk analyst. From funny loner and miserable married man to survivor's guilt and dead savior. No matter the titles they wore, Richie wouldn't forget the first time someone made his heart soar with acceptance and gratitude and love. A friend, a potential lover, a dream he longed for. Gone.


End file.
